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The Baroque Alive and Beautiful

by Harry Rolnick

An immaculate conception is worthless unless its executors have an equally immaculate method of making it work. House of Dreams, from a Toronto-based Early Music ensemble, was not only original in concept, but its technical staff, narrator, writer and of course its 16-member ensemble had all the requisite, and yes, all the immaculate skills.

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Heavenly – that’s a concise but accurate description of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s newest release, The Galileo Project: Music of the Spheres - a fusion of the arts, science and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries captured in an imaginative DVD and CD soundtrack commemorating Galileo’s first public demonstration of the telescope. It’s not only heavenly in its subject matter, but it’s pure heaven both visually and in an aural sense.

Traditional flamenco always looks like flamenco. Putting themes to the dance is generally a square-peg-round-hole exercise.

The better way to judge a traditional flamenco concert is by the skill of the artists and the impact of the total presentation – which makes Esmeralda Enrique’s 30th anniversary show a hands-down winner.

True, there is the attempt at a theme here: The show is called Aguas/Waters, and each piece has a water focus. But in the end, only two works evoke this concept. The rest look like, well, flamenco dance.